If you tried Gimpsy, you couldn't have failed to notice the unique relationship between the user's intention and the search results. For instance, if your site happens to sell computer related books in the UK, then it will be listed in the 'buy> books> computers & Internet' category with the location set to United Kingdom. Imagine that a user has entered the phrase 'buy computer books in the UK' in reply to Gimpsy's question: 'What would you like to do?'. After clicking on the 'Find' button, Gimpsy presents to the user a list of sites, which includes yours.

Clearly, this user is a (very promising) potential customer of your site! In fact, it is difficult to imagine a better prospect coming to you. The user wants to buy computer books and he or she lives in the UK. If you were able to encourage this user to click-through to your site - you would most likely gain a customer. Gimpsy has the potential of significantly adding traffic to your site. Read on to learn how.

You need to register and fill in a Site Suggestion form. A Gimpsy Editor will review the site and decide whether it fulfils all the required criteria. If yes, it will be listed. If not - the site will be rejected. You can see full details about the process and the criteria we use in the file Help - suggesting sites.

Gimpsy uses random placement as a matter of policy. We don't believe that sorting sites alphabetically or by popularity (which is very difficult to measure anyway) provides a good service to the user. Each month, all the sites in every category are reshuffled and given a new random place.

That depends on the date that it was introduced to Gimpsy. The rule is that a site is 'new' for at least one calendar month. That means that sites that were accepted early in the month may enjoy that position for 50 or more days, while sites that were accepted in the last days of the month may have only 35 days or less.

At the moment, this phrase is literally translated to the common 'link to us'. By placing a link to Gimpsy on the Home Page of your site, it will acquire a 'golden star' and will get a top place in its category. At the moment, this process is manual - tell us (via the internal Customer Relations link) that you are interested in this program - and we will provide further information. For examples of linking options please see the 'Link to us' help file.

Only the first few places in each category are reserved for the monthly auction. The number varies from category to category, but it is never more than a third of the number of sites. Sometimes much less.

You must register first and have a valid credit card (currently only Visa or Master Card are accepted). At present, there is no administration fee to be paid, but Gimpsy reserves the right to introduce one in the future.

You will then be given access to the bidding screen. Obviously, you can only bid for placement of your site in the categories in which it is listed. If listed in more than one category, you must bid separately in each of them. The bidding process is 'closed' - you cannot see the other bidders' offers. You are told, however, what the bidding amounts were in the previous auction. Bidding amounts must be in multiples of 1 (one) USD and the lowest possible starting bid is 5 USD.

If two or more site owners bid an identical amount, the final rank is determined by the order of bidding acceptance at Gimpsy. First bid will be placed highest. As a registered Site Owner you will have access to a help file that explains the auction in great detail.

Not necessarily. There are many sites, in the USA and elsewhere in the world, from which Canadians can buy shoes online. Thus, every site that 'covers' Canada may be able to compete with you, but sites that do not (for example, they concentrate on the UK market) will not be able to do so. In other words, the auction is not just within the category, but also within each relevant location.

In the Pay Per Click (PPC) method, the site owner is charged a fixed sum every time a user clicks on the link to his site. Although this seems an ideal 'pay for results' promotion method, the Gimpsy team believes that the disadvantages of the PPC method outweigh its advantages, and has opted instead for using the 'Pay For Placement' (PFP) scheme, described above, because:

In the PPC method,

Users may click on a link for irrelevant reasons (just to 'punish' a site, or as a prank), or refrain from clicking, because they find it unfair to 'charge' the site for just visiting it.

Competitors can harm each other by clicking on each other's link

The budget required is unpredictable. The money in the site's account can suddenly run out.

The position of the site can change at any time, which requires constant monitoring.

In contrast, in the PFP method,

Users will only click on a site for relevant reasons, and will feel free to do so, as their decision has no financial ramifications for the site owner.

Competitors cannot harm each other.

The payment is a fixed sum - easy to control budget.

Position obtained is guaranteed for a month - no changes are possible between auctions.

There is no need to monitor the position and modify the bids to obtain optimal placement, which reduces marketing overhead.

Obviously, before you decide on bidding any money, Gimpsy will need to prove itself to you first as an excellent 'click-through' referrer to your site. Not only do we understand that, but we wouldn't want to have it any other way.

As a site owner, you will receive monthly statistics about the number of exposures and click-throughs in your category. You can use the data to help decide the best time for you to enter the auction.